Good Samaritan reunites The Buckeye Lady with missing car, business cart

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A local small business owner whose car was stolen — with a crucial part of her business inside — is breathing a sigh of relief.

Alicia Hindman works out of the kitchen at & Juice Co in Clintonville where she creates stuffed buckeyes, the popular peanut butter treat covered in chocolate with a special twist: flavors from carrot cake to red velvet are infused in the middle.

Hindman, owner of The Buckeye Lady, a small business born out of the pandemic, said she was worried her brick-and-mortar plans would be put on hold after her vehicle and the polka-dotted cart she uses to sell her stuffed buckeyes went missing Sunday morning.

“My cart is such a huge piece of the company,” she said. “We’re able to take our stuffed buckeyes all around town to markets and corporate events and weddings and such, so it was very devastating on Sunday,” she said.

She put her story on social media, and dozens of community members shared her post. Now, she’s thanking one special woman for helping her get back to work.

“Late Tuesday night I get a phone call from a woman saying, ‘Are you missing a car and perhaps a business cart?’ And I said, ‘I am,’ and she said, ‘Well it’s in my yard,” Hindman said.

Hindman said the post isn’t what brought her car and business cart back to her — instead a good Samaritan named Classie who noticed the vehicle parked partly on her property.

“We were wondering how we’re going to continue tonight,” Hindman said. “We have the largest corporate event to date, and we needed our cart to do the event, so we were really worried we’d have to cancel this event and cancel our markets this weekend.”

Hindman said she knows she’s lucky — she never expected to have her belongings returned.

“Classie, if you’re watching this, my company is now back up and running because of you,” she said. “You have such a big heart.”

The business cart is getting right back to work, as Hindman said she needs it to keep 1,200 stuffed buckeyes cool at her big event tonight. She is also grateful to the community for helping, too, beyond sharing her social media post.

Members of the community banded together to raise enough money for her to buy a new cold cart for her business before the original one was returned.

“It’s just great that now I’ll have another cart that the community had a piece in, so I hope to have a little cart event to where all the people that donated can come, and I can treat them to some buckeyes.”